Nicaragua’s War on the Catholic Church

Excerpt Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has declared Nicaragua will hold “no more elections,” locking the opposition out of power, if he gets his way. Though the 80-year-old gave the speech, the fingerprints of his wife and co-president, Rosario Murillo, are clearly visible on it. Since he first came to power in 1979 with the help of Cuba, Nicaragua’s Sandinista “El Comandante” has repeatedly usurped elections and would likely have little trouble doing so again. But with Murillo even less popular than the revolutionary-turned-dictator, Ortega is dispensing with made-for-show elections to lay the groundwork for her formal succession. One way Murillo, 75, has positioned herself for power is by spearheading a signature element of the regime’s repression: targeting the Catholic Church. Murillo is not simply Ortega’s co-president or chief propagandist. For nearly a decade, she has been the ideological engine behind and now the public face of Nicaragua’s campaign against its Catholics. With Ortega’s health in decline and Murillo in the driver’s seat of Managua’s authoritarian apparatus, the coming succession could escalate Christian persecution in the country and further entrench an anti-American regime in the United States’ backyard. Nicaragua’s current campaign against the Catholic Church is often portrayed as Ortega’s revenge against the clergy who provided sanctuary to protesters during the country’s 2018 demonstrations. But it has evolved into part of the regime’s succession strategy. Lacking Ortega’s cult of personality, Murillo is leveraging religious persecution to eliminate rival sources of moral and political authority while Ortega is still alive. Samuel Ben-Ur is a research analyst focusing on the Middle East at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Connor Pfeiffer serves as senior director of government relations at FDD Action.